


In the Eye of the Beholder

by octopus_fool



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Differing Standards of Beauty, Elves and Dwarves, Gen, Humor, Khazâd November, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 10:19:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12933180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/pseuds/octopus_fool
Summary: Azaghâl had heard men talking about the beauty of elves more times than he could remember.





	In the Eye of the Beholder

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day 23 of [Khazâd November](https://a-grump-of-dwarves.tumblr.com/post/166304116735/khaz%C3%A2d-november-2017), the additional prompt was "elves".  
> 

Azaghâl had heard men talk about the elves. He saw their pupils dilate, heard them waxing poetic about their hair, their ears, their skin, their figures and their eyes. It was their eyes especially that fascinated men. They compared them with gems, the stars, the sun and deep water. Azaghâl had a hard time imagining that one thing could look like all of those at once, but then, men always said that dwarves had a mind too literal for poetry.

He had to admit, he was intrigued by the tales. In his rare idle hours, he tried to imagine what elves looked like. On rare occasions, he even tried to capture the descriptions on parchment, even though he was sure his sketches did the elves no justice. 

And then, Azaghâl saw elves for the first time. He was completely overwhelmed. They were the ugliest creatures he had ever seen. Uglier than the toads dwarflings hid to scare their teachers, uglier than the entrails of birds in which some wise dwarves read the future, uglier even than some of the orcs Azaghâl had seen. 

Azaghâl’s mouth dropped at the sheer hideousness of them. He had to remind himself that a polite dwarf does not stare, as his mother had always told him. Still, his eyes kept wandering back to the faces of the elves, trying to find the beauty men had described to him.

They had the shape of a weed that had fallen into a cave and had grown pale and thin to reach an inaccessible light. Their hair fell down their shoulders in shapeless lines, their ears were almost as twisted as those of a wild boar, only with less hair to hide their hideousness. Their skin was as though a master had needed to erase the mishappen work of an untalented student down to the very last line. They completely lacked beards. And their eyes… their eyes were the worst thing about them. They looked as though glowing coals had been dropped into them, burning their way down until they burned away their very souls. And once their souls had burned away, the coals had still kept burning, burning until the very depths of fiery Uhrudul Fikhibîn glowed from them. Azaghâl pitied these creatures, but he could not hold their gaze. 

He wondered if the men merely insisted the elves were beautiful to flatter the elves, after all, they did have superior technology and it couldn’t hurt to have them on your side. But the elves were never around when the men spoke of their beauty and in Azaghâl’s experience, mountains were better at flying than men at acting. No, they genuinely had to have such awful taste.

Azaghâl got better at hiding his dismay at the appearance of the elves. The more dealings he had with them, the better he got at reading their blank faces. It helped that the elf Azaghâl had most interactions with had a face that was a little less difficult to look at. 

Azahâl knew orc scars when he saw them, too many of his warriors had been disfigured by them. And yet, on this elf’s face, they looked almost handsome, for an elf at least. If Azaghâl spent far too much time pondering the elf’s face and his scars, it was only to figure out how it changed the harsh elven features into something more attractive, if in a slightly gnarled way.

And finally, the day came when Azaghâl invited Maedhros and delegation of elves to his mountain city for the negotiations of a trade agreement for their people. 

Azaghâl couldn’t say he hadn’t seen it coming. He had arranged for the dwarves lining the streets to be the most hardened warriors, the ones that wouldn’t even flinch at the worst carnage. He didn’t know where things went wrong. But when he led the delegation of elves into the mountain, there were dwarves of all trades standing behind the tough warriors. Mouths dropped open. Dwarves stared. Dwarflings started screaming. The elves’ faces stayed expressionless, even for their terms. 

As much as Azaghâl hoped that the elves thought something else the cause of the dwarves’ reactions, he knew it wasn’t the case.

He had just opened a bottle of the finest southern wine from his cellars that evening and wanted to apologize to Maedhros, when Maedhros spoke first.

“I am sorry I frightened your people’s children. I know my scars have this effect on children of men too. They expect the fair faces of my kind, not the mess Morgoth’s servants left me with.”

Azaghâl couldn’t help but chuckle. “Do not worry, they were not afraid of the scars you bear.”

“There is no need to be courteous. I could see that they were staring at me. I am used to it.”

“I am not being courteous. In fact, since we are alone, I will be frank. They were staring at you because you were most likely the only one they could bear to look at. I only confide this in you because I know you well enough to consider you a friend, but your people are, well, the most unlovely folk of middle-earth to us dwarves. There is something about your scars that makes you a little less homely to us.”

Maedhros stared at him. “You are joking.”

“Are we dwarves known for our jests?”

“No.” His mouth quirked, setting the scars in motion. “But I have known _you_ to jest.”

Azaghâl should have remembered that Maedhros understood his dry humour for what it was. “True. But I do not jest in this. Most elves are so hideous to us that many cannot bear to look at them when we first set eyes on them. Try watching the reaction some of my people have to your delegation tomorrow if you don’t believe me.”

“And I am the exception to that?” Maedhros asked, amusement and bafflement turning his face into a strange battleground.

“You aren’t exactly what we would consider beautiful, not by any stretch of imagination. But you aren’t ugly either and probably wouldn’t send any dwarflings screaming.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Maedhros said, his mouth quirking upwards again.

Their eyes met for a long moment. Azaghâl was glad he had learned how to avoid blushing, because Maedhros’s eyes really did seem like the sun, or perhaps an overly bright gem as seen through deep water.

Finally, Maedhros cleared his voice. “We should probably start discussing tomorrow’s meeting.”

**Author's Note:**

> Uhrudul Fikhibîn – anguish-like place of ancient iron - my attempt at translating Angband into Khuzdul
> 
> I’m currently taking Christmas/Yuletide/winter requests/prompts over on Dreamwidth! If you’re interested, read more here: <https://octopus-fool.dreamwidth.org/2017/12/03/>


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